Fanny looked round, saw the cigar on the floor and then looked at him:
"Jimmie," she said, "pick that up and let it die outside."
He obeyed her without a word. Opening the window he picked up the offending weed and threw it out.
"Ha! ha!" he laughed bitterly. "In three months to parachute from first-class cafés to carrying home-made lunches; to go from threes for a half to twos for a nickel; instead of having plenty of money in pocket to be without even a cent! I tell you, Fanny, the way we're living now is—hell!"
Flopping down on a chair near the table, he presented an abject picture of utter despondency. If Fanny had been in better humor she would have laughed at him, but in her present mood his complaints only irritated her the more. Stopping in her work, she turned on him. Her face was flushed; her eyes flashed fire. At last the moment had come to give it to him:
"Don't you think I know it better than you do?" she cried. "I used to be able to pay twenty-five or thirty dollars for a hat, now when I want one I'll have to trim it myself; I could have a taxi once in a while, now I'm lucky if I can take a car; a seat in the orchestra at the matinées was none too good for me, now I think it is great to go to the moving pictures; I used to have a nine-room apartment at a Hundred and Fortieth street, now I've got a five-room flat at a Hundred and Seventy-sixth! My 'friends' don't come to see me because it's too far uptown. I used to have a servant to do my work and a woman come in to do my washing, now I have to do the work and the cooking and the washing into the bargain. Don't talk to me about your cigars, and your lunches, and your pocket money! Only a woman can know what it means to come down in the world!"
He listened in silence to her tirade, carelessly rocking back and forth on the two rear legs of his tilted chair. When finally she stopped for sheer want of breath he said:
"I guess you're right, Fanny, I'm sorry I spoke. The woman gets the worst of it every time."
"Yes—every time, Jimmie," she said emphatically as she proceeded to lay the table. "Whether she's right or wrong."
"If Virginia hadn't quit Stafford," he grumbled, "it would have been different."